Charlie Javice, the founder of the college financial-aid startup Frank, has been sentenced to over seven years in prison for defrauding JPMorgan by inflating user numbers before the bank’s $175 million acquisition. The court found her guilty of creating false records that made it appear Frank had over 4 million customers when it actually had fewer than 30,000. Javice, 33, had previously pleaded guilty in March to the fraud, which led to the sale of her company to the banking giant in 2021. During the sentencing hearing, Javice expressed deep remorse, stating she was ‘haunted that my failure has transformed something meaningful into something infamous.’ She also admitted to regretting her actions, which she said would ‘take my entire life to regret.’ The judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, largely dismissed arguments by Javice’s lawyer, Ronald Sullivan, that he should be lenient given the disparity between a 28-year-old founder and the 300 investment bankers from the largest bank in the world. The judge, however, acknowledged that JPMorgan had failed to perform adequate due diligence and criticized the bank for its lack of thoroughness. He emphasized that the punishment was for Javice’s conduct, not the bank’s mistakes. Javice was part of a growing list of young tech executives who rose to fame with supposedly disruptive companies but faced collapse due to accusations of puffery and fraud in their dealings with investors.